A professional career which started in retail with companies such as John Lewis led to a variety of senior leadership and marketing roles in both the private and public sector. Now, as Managing Director of Sterling Training Ltd, she delights in working closely with strategic and operational managers to help them realise their business and training goals.

Emma leads a team with a real passion for developing people to make the most of their skills, take ownership of and exude confidence in their roles and when she can, she still delivers training.  An enthusiastic, imaginative and outgoing trainer, Emma particularly enjoys working with managers and leaders at all levels to get the very best from themselves and their staff.  

Richenda devised and drives Sterling’s learner-centred approach, hand-picking and developing our team of trainers to deliver to our values. She has trained business leaders, clinical staff, teachers, trainers all around the world. Her work often focuses on Sterling’s Armed Services clients both at home and abroad.  

A highly qualified L&D professional, Richenda is always grasping opportunities to develop her own skills. Her qualifications range from a clinical degree in Speech & Language Therapy (SLT), to an HR qualification from CIPD, as well as a PGCE, several English Language Teaching qualifications and a Masters in Education Studies. She is also a qualified Neurolanguage Coach and Global DISC profiler and coach and thanks to her extensive experience of living and working abroad, she has become the cultural guru of the team.

Pip is predominately our people person! With over a decade of experience in hospitality and retail management, Pip has developed super customer service and organisation skills. That’s a perfect fit with the role of Course Co-ordinator and Customer Champion here at Sterling Training.

Passionate about helping people become the best they can be, Pip relishes matching ambitious individuals and companies with the right choice for them, from our variety of training options.  Getting the various moving parts in order, so the team can facilitate exciting, challenging, learner-centred training makes Pip very happy indeed. She is always on hand to support those undertaking professional development, from showing our international military delegates around London to making sure all our live online courses have all the right participants in the right place, at the right time.

Jono has worked as a trainer and facilitator across the UK, Europe and the Middle East, and helps our customers to drive change and enhance individual and team performance. He prides himself on his ability to connect with delegates in a way that makes his sessions personal and relevant. Jono’s open, honest and challenging approach encourages dialogue and participation, and he works hard to ensure all delegates’ needs are met during training.

Jono’s extensive experience in the communications industry has given him a real depth of practical business, sales and management knowledge and experience, which he brings to his sessions. Management and leadership skills, effective communication and sales enablement, are the areas Jono relishes and he takes great pride in seeing the growth and development of those in his care.

Phil’s key role as Principal Warfare Officer in the Royal Navy, specialised in surface and anti-submarine warfare. He was responsible for the management and programming of 14 ships employed from Gibraltar to Finland in both training and operations.

After managing operations in Kosovo (Army and Royal Marines) and Iraqi No Fly Zones (RAF), Phil qualified as a teacher of English to Speakers of Other Languages, and having been trained to deliver in our learner-centred style brings a huge amount of expertise to the team. Phil works closely and enthusiastically with our clients designing and delivering military terminology, leadership, project management as well as tactical and operational training.

As a communications, presentations and behavioural specialist, Mary has trained and coached employees around the world in a variety of roles up to and including senior executives.

Specialising in presentation and leadership skills, Mary also gets excited about developing clients' customer experience, improving communication skills, and helping staff to maximise their impact, strengthen their ability to influence, enhance their personal credibility and present powerful and impactful presentations. A natural in the learner-centred training space, Mary has a passion for listening, and for helping others and has an extensive toolkit of practical tools, and techniques and concepts that our learners find invaluable in helping them work their way to their own conclusion.

After qualifying in Catering Management Jennifer worked for large catering companies as a manager before undertaking the refurbishment of a country pub, adding a 36-seat restaurant and a large function room, which she ran successfully for over a decade. At the end of the lease Jennifer discovered a passion for training, consultancy and auditing in food safety and health and safety, leading to her delivering Apprenticeships and NVQ qualifications in a range of hospitality, management and business administration.

With over 30 years of experience in training and management, Jennifer facilitates training for our specialist and generalist military personnel as well as working with those clients who need support in lean management, preparing policies and procedures food hygiene, risk assessment, H&S, quality assurance and auditing.

John has over 30 years’ experience in procurement, contract and bid management in both the private and the public sector, in blue chip companies as well as SMEs. He has also owned two SME businesses himself, so comes to us with exactly what we all love in a trainer - real life experience.

John has a nurturing approach and especially enjoys supporting our defence sector clients to improve their skills in managing the cost base through improvements in procurement processes and delivery, reductions in stock holdings and acquisition process efficiency. He has also helped client teams to put together high quality bid documents, which take into account financial modelling in both new and existing markets. 

Stewart’s career with the Royal Navy culminated in a role as NATO Submarine Communications Specialist, where he was responsible for managing all aspects of the submarine communications organisation (including training), liaising with Command, both national and NATO, and handling highly classified codes and documents.

Re-training more recently as an English language teacher, Stewart’s competence is in communications skills in a wide range of operational environments. Having been trained to deliver in our learner-centred style, Stewart works with our clients to design and deliver military terminology, trainer training as well as tactical and operational training.

Claire is officially our Microsoft Marvel! Having worked with Microsoft products since before the release of Windows, she ran a presentation centre for a US investment bank, where she trained her own team members. She trains us here at Sterling too!

Claire has delivered Microsoft training for around 30 years and particularly loves to use simple language and share skills, techniques and super tips to help people to work more effectively with Word or Excel on a daily basis.  Her passion is to help save their precious time and remove some of the mystery and the many frustrations brought about by software, so that our delegates can focus on improving their efficiency and effectiveness.

Mike has over 25 years’ experience in language education, international training, and cross-cultural communication in a variety of locations across the globe.

Mike's journey began in international logistics in the automotive industry in Southampton, before he relocated to the Far East. Here he held pivotal roles with a variety of engineering companies before expanding his range of teaching and training skills with positions in the UK and Latin America, delivering business English, cultural awareness, presentation skills and international relations. 

Using our learner-centred style, Mike uses his enthusiasm and boundless energy to motivate our international defence sector clients, preparing them for training in fields such as finance, logistics and aviation engineering. He also works with our Armed Services clients in the UK, where his courses centre on enhancing cultural and communicative competence in the international training room.

Annie has 20 years’ experience as a teacher specialising in Learning Support, Challenging Behaviour and Alternative Curriculums. She balances a career in teaching with one in Military Intelligence, having been an Army Reservist since 2013 and contributed to several overseas as well as UK based operations.

Annie now enjoys combining her skills and expertise by delivering bespoke technical language or specialist military training to our civilian and military clients, either in the UK or overseas. Demonstrating cultural awareness and applying emotional intelligence would definitely feature in Annie’s trainer-survival-skills manual, as would finding a humorous side to everything!

Helen is an experienced and dynamic trainer with a pragmatic and creative approach to her specialist area of HR and people management skills. With a proven ability to work at both a strategic and operational level, Helen is an excellent communicator with a resilient and confident approach.

Helen has a Post-Graduate Diploma in Human Resource Management and is a Certified Master Practitioner NLP. Like all Sterling trainers, she is very creative in the training room and ensures much of the learning is experiential.  Delegates find her friendly, professional and entertaining.  Helen loves delivering training to our military clients as well as relishing the challenges presented through the wide range of training and coaching she delivers for our commercial customers.